


Sunflower

by ExtraSteps



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: A Homecoming, M/M, a long time apart, and a field of sunflowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23750236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExtraSteps/pseuds/ExtraSteps
Summary: Every day on his birthday, a sunflower is delivered to Liam's house.
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Comments: 8
Kudos: 97





	Sunflower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [manonisamelon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/manonisamelon/gifts).



Liam sits in his room, lost in thought. His fingers gently brush over a pressed petal, back and forth, while he stares out his back window.

It’s been five years since the first sunflower was delivered to his door on his birthday. Every year, without fail, he’s woken up by a knock on the door, a friendly delivery person handing him a bright sunflower with a long stem. There’s never a note, or anything to indicate who it’s from. But Liam knows.

It’s no coincidence that they started appearing after Theo had left.

They never dated. No promises were made. But Liam has waited anyway, closing off that part of himself to anyone else.

Now he wonders if it was worth it. Because instead of being woken by a knock, there is only his alarm. He’d sat up, a deep sense of foreboding settling into his bones.

He can’t help but think the worst. Maybe he’s moved on. Maybe he’s found someone else. Maybe he doesn’t care anymore.

Liam sighs.

It’s hard to press a sunflower. They’re thicker than normal flowers, with the hard seeds and the round stem. You have to carefully pull off each petal and press them individually, before sticking them back onto the flower. 

Sometimes the seeds fall out. Liam looks down from the flower he’s twirling in his hands to his back garden. It’s full of sunflowers, bright and cheerful, their faces turning towards the sun and soaking in its rays. 

Every seed that has fallen onto his bedside table has been planted and nurtured, just like the hope in his chest has been nurtured by closing his eyes and remembering his smile, that flash of teeth in a genuine grin that only Liam has ever witnessed.

He closes his eyes now, remembers it, and then sets the sunflower back in the vase with the rest.

He tries to cling to the hope, but he can feel it starting to slip through his fingers like a cloud passing over the sun and blocking its light.

Liam gets ready for the day in silence. Normally his friends and family throw him a huge party, but his birthday falls on a Monday this year, so his party had been on Saturday, all of his presents already opened. He’d loved them and loved seeing everyone, and he’d laughed and had a great time, but it was this that he’d been looking forward to the most.

He leaves his room and glances at the dining room table, where his flower press is already sitting, ready to be used.   
With another sigh he turns away from it and starts up the kettle, going through the motions of making his morning coffee. His usual routine is to sit out on his back porch and enjoy his garden, but he doesn’t feel like that today.

Instead, he goes out the front door, sitting on his front step and watching as the world around him slowly wakes up, sipping his coffee and trying not to feel sorry for himself.

Five years. It’s a long time, but it hasn’t been wasted. Liam’s travelled, he’s been to college and gone out partying and drinking until he grew sick of it. He has a job working at the high school as a History teacher. He took over the lacrosse team, Coach was pretty happy to retire. He has great friends who are also his pack, and there doesn’t seem to be anything that this crazy town throws at them that they can’t handle.

He has everything, except the one thing that truly matters. The man he wants to share it with.

Liam finishes his coffee and sighs. People are starting to leave for work now, cars pulling out of driveways and taking off down the street. He’s still on break, so his day stretches in front of him, empty, but full of promise. He’s not going to let himself wallow.

He stands, and turns away from the road, pausing as he hears the throaty roar of an engine turn onto the street. 

It’s a nice neighbourhood. Most people here drive quiet, respectable, sleek looking cars, so it’s enough of an anachronism that he glances back over his shoulder, eyes tracking the large blue truck that rumbles down the street.

And comes to a stop out the front of his house.

His hands tremble as he sets down the mug on the porch railing, heart in his throat. He watches as a man gets out of the truck, walking around it, his face breaking out into a wide grin.

“Did you miss me, sunshine?” He asks, and standing in the middle of Liam’s front yard, he opens his arms.

A second later he grunts as Liam tackles him to the ground, nose already pressed behind his ear, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“I take that as a yes,” Theo murmurs, his arms encircling him and holding him tight. Liam nods, not trusting his voice, just clinging to him, his wolf practically singing in his chest.

It takes a full minute before he’s able to bring himself to pull away, and he pushes himself up on his arms so that he can drink Theo in. He looks more or less the same, though his eyes are more vibrant and alive than Liam’s ever seen. There’s a layer of fuzz on his jaw that Liam finds very appealing, and his hair is a little shorter than the last time he saw him.

Five years ago.

“I should probably let you up,” Liam laughs, getting to his feet and offering Theo a hand. The chimera takes it, lets Liam pull him up, and he smiles.

“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s been a long time.”

Liam nods. “Come on,” he says, reluctantly letting go of Theo’s hand to lead him into the house. Theo looks around, giving an appreciative whistle and Liam watches him move around his space, examining photographs and picking up books and knick-knacks. There’s a sort of reserved air to him as he looks around, and it takes Liam a minute to realise what he’s looking for.

“There’s no one else,” he says quietly from where he’s leaning in the doorway. 

Theo looks at him, and Liam’s sure he isn’t imagining the hope in his expression.

He clears his throat, cheeks tinting slightly. “There’s never been anyone else,” he admits.

“Never?” Theo asks.

Liam smiles, gestures for Theo to follow. He walks through the passageway to the back door and holds it open for him.

Theo passes him, and gasps.

Every sunflower can have between a thousand to fifteen hundred seeds in them. 

A lot of seeds had fallen from the pressed flowers he kept in his room. And he’d planted all of them.

“Wow,” Theo whispers, walking further out into the garden, turning in a slow circle as he takes in the thousands of sunflowers that surround him, more of a meadow than a garden. “This is incredible,” he says to Liam.

He stands there, looking up at him, and Liam smiles sadly.

“Five years ago,” he says, “my anchor left, and he took everything happy and bright with him. I didn’t think I would survive it.”

Theo’s face falls. “Liam,” he whispers.

Liam shakes his head, starts walking towards Theo. “But then a few weeks later on my birthday, there’s this knock on the door. It’s a sunflower, and it’s beautiful, you know? All those golden petals. And it was the first time I’d smiled in ages.”

Theo watches him, his shoulders tense, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“Year after year, and that knock would come, and there would be another sunflower, another ray of light, feeding that hope inside me that maybe my feelings hadn’t been so one-sided after all.”

He stops in front of Theo, reaches up slowly and cups his cheek, thumb rubbing gently.

Liam whispers, “I knew you’d come back,” and leans in. Theo meets him halfway, hands gripping Liam’s hips and holding him close as their lips gently brush in their first kiss.

Theo kisses him and then pulls back slightly, and Liam opens his eyes to look at him.

“I’m sorry I made you wait so long,” Theo says, expression pained.

“It was worth it,” he says firmly. “If it led you back here, then it was worth it.”

And Theo’s smile, always slow to come, lights up his whole face, right before he ducks back in to kiss him again. Liam kisses him back, lips parting as Theo licks into his mouth, the kiss turning from sweet to passionate in seconds.

But it’s them. So who’s surprised.

***

Later, after Liam lies in his bed, breathless and grinning, hands stroking through Theo’s hair, he watches with some amusement as Theo takes in the five sunflowers sitting in an old vase next to his bed.

And Theo smiles.


End file.
